What does your garden grow. Journal entry #1 2005
Dale Cupo
God has always used images of gardens to speak to my heart. Every spring I try to plant a garden, excited to see the fruit of my labor. My only downfall is that I am what my husband calls “Spatially Challenged”. My rows are never even, I plant things where I think they will look pretty and basically don’t really have a system. Some years my methods yield some produce but usually I have no success with tomatoes. I forget to tie them up and weeds usually choke the vines.
Last year I was just as hopeful when I began planting in spring. Then came mid July with all the weeds and drooping plants. I began to get discouraged every time I looked out at my garden. It did not look like my neighbors neatly tended garden. I was also becoming discouraged in the spiritual realm. I was often comparing my service at church and my desire to serve God with others around me.
One day, I was once again lamenting my soggy cucumbers, drooping green beans and rotting tomatoes. It was, as I was gathering basketful after basketful of red raspberries that God opened my eyes. I was indeed producing fruit literally and spiritually. I just needed to stop comparing myself to others. God was God and He was the Gardener, I was the garden. The Holy Spirit who dwells in me will produce the kind of fruit the Master desires. MY fruit may be wild and prickly but it is sweet to the savior. My job is to offer it and share it with all who the Lord places in my path.
What kind of fruit will you bear this year? I am sure it is exactly what God has planted.
2 Corinthians 9:8
“God is able to make all Grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times having all you need you will abound in every good work”
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